If you didn’t know, Microsoft recently began an initiative which would release all first-party Xbox One games as part of the Xbox Game Pass subscription. The pass works similar to Sony’s PS Plus except that it offers a massive library which constantly gets updated, as a pose to a set of monthly games. Because Sea of Thieves is a first party game, the title instantly landed on the Xbox Game Pass subscription – unfortunately, the game didn’t perform as a well as it should have on the subscription model.
According to market intelligence firm SuperData, Sea of Thieves initially had 1.7 million monthly active players on the Xbox One and 283,000 players on PC during its first month, however “more than half of these users obtained the game through the limited free trial offered as part of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass.”
Basically, these players treated the game as a demo by using the subscription service – not logging back on after they had their fill.
Sea of Thieves released back in March and had a fairly rough launch (with some players comparing the lack of content similar to No Man’s Sky). Rare has since been hard at work with constant updates and content additions. Can the studio bring these players back?
